Benefit set for retired Royersford police chief coming back from cancer

UNION TWP. — More than 100 days after his stem cell transplant, retired Royersford Police Chief Kevin Schurr will step out of his house into a public place for the first time since summer this Saturday.

Gear Jammers Saloon will host a pork and beer benefit for Schurr and his cancer treatment beginning at 3 p.m. and going until 7 p.m.

“The benefit will be my first official ‘day out’ since August,” Schurr told The Mercury.

Due to the transplant and his necessary recovery, Schurr has had to stay largely quarantined and house-bound since his procedure.

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For $25, each person will get food, beer and listen to Donny and Tommy, a live band in a Christmas-themed celebration.

Additionally, there will be a 50/50, “Chinese auctions,” and door prizes, among other things.

Schurr was diagnosed with multiple myeloma this past spring, a cancer that affects a person’s blood plasma cells, which are the “type of white blood cell present in your bone marrow” which help fight infection, according to the Mayo Clinic.

It forced him to retire from police work, something Schurr had done since 1979, when he started in Spring City before moving to the Royersford Police Department a short time later.

In mid-August, Schurr underwent the stem cell transplant and the chemotherapy, stem cell cleaning and other physically and mentally taxing procedures that accompany it.

He spent just 17 days in Jeanes Hospital in Philadelphia. Doctors told him the usual amount of time spent after the procedure was 21 days and the record was 14.

During those two-and-a-half weeks, he was mostly kept in isolation, which Schurr said was “difficult” and a part of a “spiraling down” he felt.

At home in September, Schurr predicted that 2014 would be his “comeback year.”

About the Author

Frank Otto is a general assignment reporter covering Phoenixville, Limerick and Spring-Ford schools in addition to features and spot news. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Otto moonlights with the sports department on occasion. Reach the author at fotto@pottsmerc.com
or follow Frank on Twitter: @fottojourno.